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A Backward Look: 50 Years of Maine Books and Bookmen Francis M. O’Brien. Portland, ME: Anthoensen Press, 1986. My first impression of this book is that it’s only 49 pages long, which is good because the deadline is only a week away. And the author spends half the time on non-book topics. His family history. A rather idyllic childhood in the “Forest City.” Many early jobs, including sitting in a tent on a hill near a bridge and recording all the incoming state license plates f

Feedback is usually a good thing if it is fair. Most of us engage in and are shaped by feedback in ways we don’t even realize. Evolution itself is one giant feedback loop. As booksellers, one important way to measure the viability of whatever business model we employ is profitability. Less immediately tangible are such factors as reputation. The more prestigious bookseller associations screen applicants in a preemptory bid for high quality based on a number of factors, and if

How on earth can it be that David Brass Rare Books, a well respected ABAA antiquarian book dealer in California of over 40 years experience, is rated by ABE as a one star bookseller, yet obviously inferior re-listers such as Anybook, Best Bargain Books, Bargain Book Stores, etc., with their millions of low-grade boiler plate listings polluting the ABE site, are rated as four or even five star booksellers? The answer, of course, is that they are not bookseller ratings at all.

Come on down, book dealer (with apologies to Bob Barker)! I’ve got a collection of books for you—price guides on antiques, some old Mandeville’s and a few really pretty auction catalogs. Or you can have what’s behind Door Number Two. As a bookseller specializing in books about antiques and collectible subjects, I would be looking through the boxes like a kid under the Christmas tree. But I expect many of you would see the copyright dates and subject matter and decline to purc

In years past, aspiring book dealers learned the trade by apprenticing with experienced ones. Today, with so few “bricks and mortar” antiquarian book shops in business, those entering the field must seek out other ways to master this complex and challenging profession. In terms of formal educational opportunities, many dealers look to the highly acclaimed Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar as a means of learning the nuts and bolts of the rare book marketplace. If you find your

-Hi Judith. What is your life story before getting into bookselling, in one paragraph (and no cheating with a fifty page paragraph)? Hi, Shawn, and thanks for giving me this opportunity to blab about myself. I grew up on a farm in rural Indiana. Dad taught high school science, while Mom was in charge of the homefront.Both Mom and Dad took care of me and my big sister Jane, and all of us together took care of a passel of chickens, cats, and dogs, plus Rackety the raccoon and

As usual, I bought a few books to prepare myself for the journey. The first one was a rather dry, brief traveler’s history of Peru. If I had read this before I planned the trip, I might have changed the destination since it made the country seem rather boring. I then skimmed through two guide books: Footprints, a rather snobbish British one, and the ubiquitous Lonely Planet. If I had bought them before I planned the trip, I might have been scared off, since both were replete

When making a large haul, all kinds of things turn up in the net. Even if it’s only books, rather than loads of paper, inscriptions and the things that fall out of books often give you some picture of the previous owner. While whipping through a load of estate books recently, I nearly threw a newer-looking one in the discard/recycle pile, rather than the price, check, keep for myself, or donate piles. That’s because it was written in. The title was List Your Self: Listmaking